Lost 116 pages
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The "lost 116 pages", also called the Book of Lehi, were pages from the original working manuscript of what Joseph Smith, Jr. said was his translation of the Golden Plates. These manuscript pages, the only copies in existence, were lost by Smith's scribe Martin Harris during the summer of 1828, and are presumed to have been destroyed. Though devastated by the loss, Joseph Smith continued dictating what later became the Book of Mormon without reproducing the lost pages, and then dictated a somewhat different and enhanced replacement section for the lost pages, which he said was taken from what he called the Plates of Nephi.
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[edit] Background
On September 22, 1827, Joseph Smith, Jr. claimed to have recovered a set of buried Golden Plates in a prominent hill near his parents' farm in Manchester, New York. Martin Harris, a respectable and wealthy farmer from nearby Palmyra (Howe 1834, p. 260) had become an early believer (Tiffany 1859, pp. 168–169), and gave Smith $50 to finance Smith's translation of the plates (Smith 1853, p. 113; Roberts 1902, p. 19). Harris's wife Lucy Harris had also invested $28 of her own money in the translation, and offered to invest up to $200 more, despite Smith having denied her request to see the plates beforehand (Smith & 1853 112).
Smith moved with his wife to her hometown of Harmony, Pennsylvania in late October 1827 (Tiffany 1859, p. 170), and began transcribing characters he said were from the plates. When Martin Harris sneaked out of Palmyra to visit Joseph Smith without his wife Lucy, who wanted to accompany him, Lucy got suspicious that the Smiths were intending to defraud her of her property (Smith 1853, p. 114).
When Harris returned to Palmyra, after a trip to New York City with some of Smith's transcribed characters, Lucy and his wife began sleeping in separate bedrooms when he returned (Smith 1853, p. 114). Lucy also surrepetitiously had her oldest daughter's suitor make a copy of the transcribed characters (Smith 1853, p. 115). Lucy then accompanied her husband back to Harmony in April 1828, where Martin had agreed to serve as Joseph Smith's scribe during further translation (Smith 1853, p. 115). While in Harmony, Lucy spent some time searching the Smith house and the surrounding grounds to find the plates so she could see them (Smith 1853, pp. 115–116), not finding them because they were reportedly hidden in the nearby woods (Howe 1834, p. 264); (Jesee 1976, p. 3). After two weeks, she returned to Palmyra (Smith 1853, p. 116).
[edit] Request for the manuscript
During a subsequent visit to act as scribe, Harris asked to take the working manuscript to Palmyra, New York to convince his wife, Lucy Harris, her sister, his brother and his parents of the validity of the Book of Mormon.
Smith later stated that he felt pressure to allow Harris to take the pages because of his financial support of the project, as well as his success in receiving comments from various scholars regarding the accuracy of the translation. In Smith's official account, he states that he asked God three times if Harris could take the manuscript and was repeatedly told no until the last time, when the Lord said He'd "allow" Harris to take the pages upon certain conditions.
In accordance with those conditions, Martin Harris signed the "covenant" or a statement promising to show the pages only to the five persons listed above.
[edit] Delay
Upon his return trip, Harris took care of some business matters, and was then called to jury duty. Some scholars believe he may have shared information about the pages to jury members and others during this time.
Because of the delay caused by his jury duty (and lack of communications to Joseph Smith), Smith became concerned over the status of the manuscript pages and travelled from Harmony to his parents' home in the Manchester/Palmyra area, leaving word for Harris to bring the pages to him as soon as possible.
The following day Harris came to the Smith home without the pages, telling him that he had lost them. Smith encouraged him to re-search his home, to which, Harris told him he had ripped open mattresses, furniture and even searched his wife's belongings for the pages.
Smith lost the ability to translate "by the Gift and Power of God" for a period of time in punishment for his multiple requests to let Harris take the manuscript after being told "no" by God. (See Doctrine and Covenants Covenant 3 and Covenant 10.)
According to the account of the matter in "The Works and Designs of God", those to whom Harris lost the pages had changed the words in the manuscript, so that if God had allowed Smith to continue translating from the Book of Lehi the prior altered manuscript would be brought forth to contradict the work and "prove" the Book of Mormon to be false. (Smith never explained how someone could change words in the manuscript without the difference in handwriting being noticeable.) Since God had previously made arrangements for this occurrence, the work was able to go forth without this event coming against his prophet. Smith learned from this experience to "trust not in the arm of flesh" and that "the works of God cannot be frustrated."
[edit] Re-translation, translation and witnesses
According to the Doctrine and Covenants Smith was commanded not to re-translate those pages, but that God had foreseen the events and prepared the same history in an abridged format, called the "Small Plates of Nephi." This abridged version makes up the books of 1 & 2 Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom and Omni. The unabridged version was called "The Book of Lehi," and was not re-translated or included in the published version of The Book of Mormon.
Smith continued translating the Book of Mosiah through the Book of Moroni and the Small Plates of Nephi, and then published the account with a statement about the 116 pages, along with the Testimony of Three Witnesses, and Testimony of Eight Witnesses within The Book of Mormon. Harris became one of the Three Witnesses who saw and handled the Golden Plates.
[edit] Lasting effects
Latter Day Saint tradition holds that Lucy either destroyed the manuscript pages or gave/sold them to "evil men" who changed wording in the pages in order to prove Smith could not re-translate the same content from The Book of Mormon. The pages have never resurfaced, although it has been rumored that forger Mark Hofmann was working on a forgery when he was caught.
This experience is one of many that resulted in a strong Mormon cultural belief that things of a spiritual nature do not need to be proven scientifically, physically or scholarly, but need to be "proven" by witness from the Holy Ghost through personal revelation.
Harris' already rocky marriage with Lucy deteriorated sharply at that time, and led to the practical end of their union.
Many Latter Day Saints also believe that this portion of the Book of Mormon, along with the "sealed portion" will be made available before the end of the world, as new scriptures comes to light. (See Latter Day Saint views of the Apocrypha.)
